No Google Fiber service available in Saratoga, at least for now

Kansas City has it. As does Austin and Provo. Just last month, Google announced that it's looking to expand its new ultrafast Internet service to nine more major U.S. metropolitan areas, including the Silicon Valley cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Santa Clara. Unfortunately for Saratogans, their city did not make the list.

The Google Fiber service boasts two significant attractive features: speed and cost. It is estimated at 100 times faster than the average U.S. connection and considerably cheaper compared to the services provided by traditional cable Internet companies such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. The service is already operational in Kansas City, and is in progress in Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah. In February, Google invited an additional 34 cities to begin talks on joining the company's gigabit broadband service. The company has indicated more invitations could be on the way.

"We aim to provide updates by the end of the year about which cities will be getting Google Fiber," the company stated in a Feb. 19 blog post.

The city of Saratoga applied for Google Fiber in March 2010. Councilman Chuck Page said the introduction of Google Fiber to Saratoga would be a benefit to residents--many of whom work in the technology sector--and even businesses such as Roku.

"To have Google Fiber would just be a phenomenal opportunity for us," Page said. "It would be such a huge help."

However, for a project of this scale, factors such as the city's topography, housing density and infrastructure could prove challenging, according to city manager Dave Anderson.

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"We have low density, we have a great number of hillside residences that are very expensive to put fiber into, and subscription fees for residents don't readily lend themselves to a return on investment that's reasonable," Anderson said.

A group of Saratogans are aware of the challenges, but believe the benefits of Google's fiber service in their community outweigh the potential obstacles. Led by community leader Rishi Kumar, the group has started a change.org petition to bring Google Fiber to Saratoga. By March 5, the petition had garnered more than 70 signatures. The goal, according to Kumar, is to gather at least 500 signatures to show Google the residents in Saratoga would welcome Fiber with open arms.

The discussion around Google Fiber began in a neighborhood group, said Kumar. Several of his neighbors believe that the service will not only improve Internet speeds but also help drive competition in the broadband market.

"Our neighbors are always concerned about the high bill from Comcast and they're always looking for better options," Kumar said. "They are actually quite agitated over the fact that Comcast is charging us so much and the only other option is AT&T DSL, which doesn't work."

Kumar said he and his neighbors plan to incorporate the petition in a package that includes other relevant data to present to Google.

"We did not make the cut this time, but let's try to get it in the next round," he said. "Nothing tried, nothing gained."